Abstract

This paper examines “e-planning,” or the use of computer-based systems to conduct planning and decision-making, in the context of community forest management. E-planning is growing in the field of environmental planning, as it promises greater equity in terms of public participation. However, a lack of scholarly work exists on the applicability for forest planning. During the COVID-19 pandemic, county foresters and other natural resource professionals in Vermont turned to e-planning when safety restrictions limited their ability to engage in face-to-face efforts. This provided an opportunity to collect empirical data about the potential for e-planning to support the public engagement process in the context of forest planning. We provide an overview of e-planning theory and examine data from Vermont to explore the promise of e-planning for forest management. We make recommendations about the applicability of e-planning in the context of forest planning, and highlight areas for future research to investigate.

中文翻译：

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将森林带回家：在 COVID-19 大流行期间关于社区林业环境中电子规划的经验教训

摘要

本文研究了社区森林管理背景下的“电子规划”或使用基于计算机的系统进行规划和决策。电子规划在环境规划领域正在发展，因为它承诺在公众参与方面更加公平。然而，在森林规划的适用性方面缺乏学术工作。在 COVID-19 大流行期间，当安全限制限制了他们进行面对面工作的能力时，佛蒙特州的县林务员和其他自然资源专业人员转向电子规划。这为收集有关电子规划潜力的经验数据提供了机会，以支持森林规划背景下的公众参与过程。我们概述了电子规划理论并检查了佛蒙特州的数据，以探索电子规划对森林管理的前景。我们就电子规划在森林规划中的适用性提出建议，并强调未来研究需要研究的领域。